No More Excuses

'The Five Accountabilities' identified by Sam Silverstein in this book can, he argues, turn accountability from a consequence into a competitive advantage. So what are they?

The 5 Accountabilities are:

1. Doing the Right Things - this means ensuring that you do ethically the specific things that will support your goals. You are accountable for understanding and identifying your strategic intent - and the activities that support it.
2. Managing Space for new opportunities - this includes taking the risk of moving away from what is currently working in order to allow something even better to happen. You are accountable for creating space for new ideas, initiatives, and projects.
3. Managing the Process when you hit an obstacle - in other words, how you deal with adversity and setbacks. You are accountable for creatively pursuing your strategic intent, even when you hit an obstacle.
4. Establishing the Right Expectations - ensuring a healthy stretch in setting goals for yourself and others. You are accountable for setting expectations that reflect your values, are properly benchmarked, and are a bit of a stretch.
5. Relationships and your contribution to them - indeed, without accountability for supporting and sustaining good relationships and communication, there can be no real implementation of the other four accountabilities. You are accountable for giving to the relationships that matter most to you - and for giving to the larger world.

Four Phases of Accountability

Whether you want to be a good leader or a great team member, accountability is the key. People respect those who live by example and demonstrate that they are accountable for their actions, choices and results.

Silverstein says there are four phases in developing full accountability:

• The accountability we hold ourselves to ourselves.
• The accountability we hold ourselves to others.
• The accountability we hold others to ourselves.
• The accountability we help others hold to themselves.

"It is easy to dodge our responsibilities, but we cannot dodge the consequences of dodging our responsibilities."